AuthorTopic: My first PF tek (Read 23762 times)

After returning from vacation and lighting/warming the casings I got green mold contamination in one of the casings - bummer! The cakes got what looked like regular black mildew - another bummer. Some mushrooms grew slowly (to about 2 inches long) in the other casing and then matured quickly after warming - sorry, forgot to get pictures. These were kinda interesting because the stipes grew quite fat near the caps and remained narrow at the base causing them to fall over before fully mature. I inoculated more jars before I left so hopefully I'll get an uninterrupted growth cycle with them - they are just about fully colonized now.

Thats brut, was it just the matter of time you left them for? Your using a grain cultivation tek i assume, how many got the mildew? Well you always have the next procedure coming so hopefully your next vacation won't interupt! Also did the one of your casings appear fine or just a small flush scattered, post some pictures, if you can!Take it easy.Jopo

No, this forum's all about the PF-Tek for simple minds - that is what I was using. I altered it a bit with casing as it sounded pretty straightforward.

I don't know if the dormant period while I was gone was the cause of contamination, or if I merely was not careful enough with how I was handling the cakes and casings.

Yes, I'm hoping that an uninterrupted growth cycle, combined with more diligent care in handling and keeping things clean, will provide no contaminations for me.

As the topic suggests, this was my first time so it's difficult for me to speculate on how the contamination happened. Sorry I do not have any pictures... as soon as I identified that things had gone awry I dumped all problems in the trash to avoid further problems.

Pretty much I have decided to start over, saving what I can but also examining closely for more contaminations. In the future, I plan to use casing for all jars in much shallower and non-translucent containers. I've already harvested enough for two doses so my efforts so far have not been totally in vain.

Thanks Anno for the easy to follow tek and for holding my hand through the process. It all makes much more sense once you have seen and can understand the whole process. Good luck to my fellow newbies on your own efforts. I'll post results of the newest jars in another topic.